GB84 (original 2004; edition 2005)

I didn't know anything about the British coal miner's strike in 1984-85 when I started this novel, but I read up on it a little and was extremely impressed by how Peace was able to integrate the key events of this bitter, destructive, bloody, and significant strike into a work of fiction. As with his Red Riding Quartet, which I also read on the recommendation of another LTer, Peace writes from many points of view, with little explanation, so it is often difficult to know what is going on. In the case of both the Quartet and this novel, I believe that to be intentional, because the people involved often had little idea of what is going on.

In the main part of the text, Peace delves into the lives and actions of high union officials, secret police operatives, people formerly involved in putting down the rebellions in Northern Ireland, rich people with influence and seeking influence within the Thatcher government (including one unpleasantly referred to as "the Jew" throughout), scabs (aka "working miners"), and many more. We see plots within plots, and intransigence on both sides. Thatcher was trying to make an example by breaking the powerful coal union, and the president of the union, "King" Arthur Scargill, was equally ideologically determined on the left (the union officials in this book refer to each other as "comrade"). The book makes clear the amount of money the government put into breaking the strike (paying thousands of policemen to confront thousands of pickets) and that for those on the frontlines, the level of violence and secret activity made it feel like civil war.

What truly gives the book humanity is the running narrative, at the beginning of each chapter, by two miners telling their day-by-day stories of what was happening to them, on the picket line, in their families, with the union chapter, in their communities, as less and less money came in and more and more people were beaten up by the cops. The contrast between life as it was lived by the miners, and the scheming and politics at the highest levels of the government and the union vividly demonstrates the horrifying lack of concern both of these organizations had for the people involved.

As with the Red Riding Quartet, some of the violence in this book is shocking, and Peace's style of writing is probably not for everyone. But this was a stunning book.

GB84 (not to be confused with Murakami's latest, 1Q84) is a novel in which Peace tackles the miners' strike in 1984 Great Britain. This was the strike by which Margaret Thatcher hoped to break the unions. The novel alternates a documentary style with extremely emotional stories of those involved with and touched by the strike.

While the book is fiction, Peace intensively researched this event. The characters range from the rich owners to the working poor; from the strikers to the scabs, from the highest union officials to deep within Margaret Thatcher's government. While it can be argued that the novel favors the strikers, its sympathies are sometimes ambiguous, and Peace does not hesitate to depict the violence and crimes perpetrated by the strikers (as well as that perpetrated by the government).

As in the previous novels I have read by Peace, his writing style is sometimes difficult to read, but this book is so important that it is well-worth the effort to read it. ( )

Excellent book about the miner's strike and the people involved and affected by it. Very well written and explained a lot of things to me that I was too young to know at the time. ( )

GB84 is dramatisation of the miners' strike in which real events (Orgreave, the Brighton bomb) and real people (Arthur Scargill, Margaret Thatcher, Ian MacGregor) mingle imperceptibly with Dave's creations. "This novel", he notes in the acknowledgements, "is a fiction, based on fact" and Dave does not take liberties with the strike's trajectory. A gripping read and, as with all his books, it brilliantly evokes the era. Read it! ( )

David Peace's GB84 is a truly great book. Centering around the British miner's strike in Northern England in 1984--Peace runs diary like entries from two rank and file miners parallel to the narrative of the main players from government (including members of MI5 whose job is to subvert the strike) and the miner's Union--the NMU.

Margaret Thatcher's determination to use whatever means necessary to destroy the NMU is evident early on. The Union's determination to destroy her government does not go nearly that far though it is hampered by it's own leader's (Arthur Scargill) dogmatic approach. Meanwhile a plethora of shady characters linked to British psyops do their covert business--wiretapping, sabotaging and beating up and sometimes killing. And meanwhile Thatcher's government having complete control of the media spin the narrative of events while sending in thousands of policemen trained in riot control to brutally break up demonstrations, pickets and marches.

The disconnection between the ordinary striking miner and the high profile Thatcher functionary Stephen Sweet is so profound that you'd almost have to wonder whether they shared the same biology. The mentality that overlooks the destruction of ordinary lives to further personal ambition is however something that is very evident in western societies anyway and is encouraged and a hallmark of a conservatively entrenched mindset.

The collapse and defeat of the NMU is almost a pre-condition from the outset. My opinion of the intransigent and self righteous Thatcher was always of a self serving and ruthless politician whose lack of empathy for those on the lower scales of British society was evident almost from her first day in power.

Anyway I think Peace's book is brilliant though very sad and even sometimes disturbing. I'd more than recommend it. ( )